I am the president and CEO of the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA)® the U.S. trade association representing more than 2,000 consumer electronics companies, and author of the New York Times best-selling books, Ninja Innovation: The Ten Killer Strategies of the World's Most Successful Businesses and The Comeback: How Innovation Will Restore the American Dream. Views are my own. Connect with me on Twitter: @GaryShapiro.

U.S. Government's Misguided 'Fixes' Hurt Us All

Every day for the past three years, our government has spent roughly $3.5 billion more than it has taken in as revenue. Our accumulated debt is more than $15 trillion, almost $5 trillion just from the last few years. By comparison, the entire Eurozone, with a bigger population and a weak economy, has less debt ($12.7 trillion). Yet as our deficit and debts continue to grow, the administration is pushing irrelevant “fixes” and attacked one of America’s most successful companies.

President Obama did the right thing by creating a bipartisan Deficit Commission to recommend how to address the cancerous debt. But when it miraculously suggested a way out requiring shared sacrifice, he ignored the results and each party went into its corner of denial. Republicans refused to raise taxes and Democrats refused to address entitlements, even attacking the House Republicans’ modest plan to rein in Medicare.

Absent serious action by our leaders, the U.S. faces a certain financial crisis. The only question is when. The world is moving away from the dollar as a reserve currency and the results will certainly be inflationary and devastating to our standard of living. Americans will not be able to afford many of the things they take for granted today.

So with a horrible unbalanced budget and a looming financial crisis, what does our Administration do? Let’s look at the two big news stories this week:

First, President Obama has made the centerpiece of his entire economic agenda the Buffett Rule. This would change the tax laws so that Americans making more than $1 million pay at least 30 percent of their income in taxes. Despite its elegant simplicity and populist pandering, it will do almost nothing to resolve our deficit.

According to the Tax Policy Center, the Buffet Rule would affect at most 217,000 American households: specifically, the fortunate Americans who have significant investment rather than “earned” income. If the Buffett Rule is made law, based on historic IRS data, these Americans would pay on average $190,000 extra in taxes each year. Even if we assume (absurdly) that these taxpayers would not shift into non-income producing investments like land or art or non-dividend paying stock, or simply move their money overseas, this would produce some $41 billion in additional tax revenue – enough to cover less than 12 days of deficit spending each year.

Simply put, the Buffett Rule, even if enacted, does almost nothing to solve our deficit problem. Worse, it would also discourage investment in growth companies, municipal bonds, etc. Passive investment income has been favorably treated under the tax laws because those investments tend to create long-term growth and jobs. To deride, ridicule, discourage and financially penalize those Americans fortunate enough to be making big investments is not only misplaced, but it is also harmful to the very investments in infrastructure and growth companies we desperately need for our economy to grow and create jobs.

The other big news is that the Obama Department of Justice sued Apple and book publishers for alleged antitrust violations over the price of electronic books. Apple’s iPad hardware and iBooks software have earned an estimated 10 to 15 percent of the market share in e-books, marking what may be the first time in the history of the admittedly ambiguous antitrust laws, that a new market entrant of just over two years somehow had enough market power to set prices. It is a novel antitrust theory, but as a lawsuit it reflects everything wrong with our politicized and anti-business government.

Here we have Apple, one of America’s best known, most successful and largest companies, and our government is leading the worldwide charge to knock it down based on a shaky-at-best antitrust theory. More, they are considering suing Google for its search engine dominance. Perhaps they should have sued Yahoo for its dominance a few years ago?

Our government’s actions in the fast-moving but dominant technology area are catnip to the European Union and other governments seeking to extract money from successful American companies.

This is not the first time our government has led the way against our best companies so they could be fined and penalized by others. They did it with Intel, Microsoft and Qualcomm, too. Each time, no real harm was found, but our government’s initial attacks enabled others to extract billions in fines or foolish remedies. And each time, the roar of new competition and innovation proved that government antitrust actions were misguided, distracting and harmful to American interests.

Our nation is heading toward an economic cliff, and the Obama administration is not only putting its full weight on the accelerator, but it is also removing the airbags of innovation and growth, which are our best chance at safely avoiding economic catastrophe.

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Gary, Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! but why on earth does it seem you are the only logical, caring, compassionate American in Washington DC? I can only hope that THE WHITE HOUSE reads this! and every American Business Executive. At this juncture, “the politics” of the parties CLEARLY could care less about the future of our children and the legacy they leave. My constant prayer is that the grown men and women GET THEIR ACT TOGETHER and do something of lasting value for this Great Republic! May they one day WAKE up and start acting like the grown up, elected men and women that they represent. Again, thanks! Karen

Uh huh. Completely missing from this argument is the fact that under the previous administration, we waged two unnecessary and unfunded international wars, cut taxes to the lowest level in decades and kept them cut despite a domestic economic crisis, and bailed out Wall Street while doing nothing for main street. And you blame the Obama administration for gigantic deficits? Dream on.

Oh, and that baby boomer retirement wall we’re about to hit at 80 mph? Not one constructive suggestion on how to plug THAT hole in the economy (at least not without further enriching the corporate insurance industry at seniors’ expense), since Obamacare is so unpalatable. Next!

The “Buffett rule won’t amount to much” knee jerk response is a Republican party-line argument. Its only one of the many holes that the Obama Admin is trying to plug but its symbolic in that it illustrates the inequity in our tax system. The last thing any Republican wants to do is agree to anything that may smell of Millionaires and Billionaires paying a far share. It has nothing to do with paying down a huge deficient since they repeatedly ignore it and could care less about it (think GW Bush administration).